Win

by Vera Nazarian

  However, no time to contemplate their fate, because now the main clock begins, and we’re surrounded by hostile Contenders who may now kill us at will.

  “Run!” I exclaim, resorting to my tried and true survival technique. My shoes are unpleasantly full of water, squishing with every step. . . . Nothing I can do about that.

  And we head toward the pyramid, aiming for the closest levitating block.

  This is going to be a four-day climbing hell, I think, as I reach the first massive stone of the pyramid, suspended before me at an easy height of a mere foot off the ground.

  I use my hands to pull myself up somehow, as I see others do the same with other blocks. And then I stand up on the hovering slab of stone that’s several thousand years old, having felt its granite coarseness with my fingers, and my mind once again reels from the impossibility. I’m climbing the Pyramid of Giza. And both the pyramid and I are on an alien planet across the universe. And we’re sort of floating in the air. . . .

  Contenders are climbing everywhere, in small groups, with knives and daggers bared, some carrying the blades between their teeth to keep their hands free.

  “Keep moving, Lark,” Brie tells me from behind as she jumps onto my own stone.

  “Everyone, watch your back,” Chihar says wisely, as he climbs the same stone behind us.

  Meanwhile Kokayi and Zaap have climbed two more stones higher up, ahead of us.

  “Okay,” I say, still paused in place. “But we need some kind of plan of action, right?”

  “Yes, we do,” Brie tells me with annoyance. “But not now, not until we’re higher up, and out of the way of the crowds, so move your butt, Earthie!”

  I nod, and then look up at the nearest reachable block. It’s about two feet away, but I would have to jump across a small chasm which is already about ten feet above ground level. And then I’d have to pull myself up by my arms again while my fingers maintain their painful grip on the coarse stone.

  I sigh, and take a deep breath, then a running leap.

  A moment of terror, then I feel the hardness of stone slam against my abdomen. I ignore the minor raw scraping along the skin of my fingers and pull myself up by the arms, all the while trying not to look down. Good thing Aeson made me practice climbing that rock wall in his estate gym. . . . Oh, Aeson, how I miss you. . . . Snap out of it, Lark, focus and hang on.

  As I stand up on this second stone, lifting my hands awkwardly for balance, I feel a head rush of dizziness. It’s similar to seasickness, because there’s just a tiny amount of give under my feet, as if I’d stepped onto a gently rocking boat, or ferry platform—or maybe not and I’m hallucinating it, and the stone is perfectly fixed in the air.

  “Keep going! Hey, this way, over here!” Kokayi yells down to us from at least five stones higher up, as we continue to scale the outer blocks of the pyramid.

  And so I select my next target stone directly above, and make the sickening leap across another chasm, even higher over the ground, and pull myself up, stand up. . . .

  And then I do another. . . . And another.

  Lord in heaven, it’s only my fifth stone and already my arms ache, and I’m somewhat out of breath. This is going to be an ugly four days, if I can even survive that long. . . .

  “Go, go, go!” Brie tells me again, following my climb closely and effortlessly. She’s so good at this, it’s disgusting.

  The other Atlanteans are way up there, far ahead of us, except for Chihar, who is careful and methodical, and—dare I say—somewhat less athletic than the others, and more like me.

  As we continue to climb, I try not to look down, because we are terribly high up now, on the right-hand slope of the pyramid if you’re facing inland, close to the right corner on the ocean side. The left ocean corner is on the opposite side and out of sight. The two land-side corners are far away, and beyond them are the sand beach, the looming cliffs, and the screaming Games audience.

  I feel the morning breeze against my face, cool and strong. Hel continues to rise in the sky, turning it brilliant white, and I blink away the distant spray, glad for the anti-glare sun shade lenses. At this point the coastal fog has dissipated completely, so that the ocean expanse is a sharp reflecting mirror of silver and deep blue. . . .

  I pause on a larger stone, still near the base of the pyramid, to catch my breath. Brie as usual follows me. “Do you know,” I say to her, “back on Earth, it would take about twenty minutes for an average person to climb the Great Pyramid all the way to the top? It was also illegal—in modern Egypt.”

  Brie’s eyebrows rise.

  I turn for a moment to stare at the immense ocean, and then glance at the various distant figures of Contenders moving on the different great blocks all around us—several Greens nearby, a Red, two stone levels directly below Chihar, and a few Blues further up, beyond Kokayi and Zaap.

  “But,” I continue, “that would be twenty minutes if the stone blocks were in their original places, resting on the ground, on top of each other, not bobbing in the air, creating these awful spacing gaps . . . Now, it would probably take us a few hours to climb this weird jumble of floating stones.”

  Brie stands up on our common stone and stretches, shaking off her hands and wrists, flexing her fingers. “You seem to possess the ridiculous encyclopedic knowledge of a search engine, Lark,” she says, craning her neck at me. “What else do you know? No, please don’t answer that, jeez.”

  “My point is, we can climb all the way to the top of this pyramid, even with the separated floating stones, by this afternoon. What then? Shouldn’t we stop and figure out what to do?”

  Brie rolls her eyes. “Do you see anyone else stopping? Stop and you’ll have to deal with fighting someone hand-to-hand. Is that what you want?”

  I exhale deeply. “No, but I do want to have some kind of plan before I run out of steam completely.”

  Chihar, panting slightly, comes up on the same stone and stands next to us. “Agreed. We need a plan. We can’t all climb to the top, especially not now. All the major Contender Teams will be there, rushing to the top for the first look at the Blue Grail. Do we want to face any of them and get killed so soon?”

  “No,” I say. “So why don’t we pause right here and discuss? If we all occupy one stone, it’s less likely that other climbers would want to deal with all of us here, together.”

  Brie thinks, then calls out to Zaap and Kokayi, the other guys on our team who’re way up high and far above us. “Hey, mountain goats!” she says. “Get back down here. Conference time!”

  In moments, Kokayi and Zaap join us on the same stone block, leaping down like goats indeed. “What?” Zaap says in his usual monosyllabic manner.

  “Let’s talk about what to do, short term, and long term,” I say, stepping back carefully to make room for the newcomers. Our stone is suddenly very crowded.

  “. . . And she is flying up the stone mountain! Look at that impossible climbing skill, Grail Games worshippers!” the announcers can be heard in the distance, filling the cliffs with their echoing excitement, while the spectator noise rises in a sudden roar. “There can be no doubt, Thalassa is out to win this Stage!”

  We all crane our necks to stare above us at the distant top, but whatever’s happening that got the audience excited must be taking place on the opposite slope of the pyramid, beyond our vantage point.

  “So, what’s the plan, amrevet?” Kokayi says, rising up on his toes, then back down on his heels, in a rocking foot muscle stretch, as he stands fearlessly at the very edge of the stone, with his back turned to the abyss.

  I look at my team members, feeling a sudden mental vertigo of leadership responsibility, not only for myself but for all these people. “Okay,” I say. “Short term, we need to find a Safe Base. Which means, we would need to go inside the pyramid, moving along the interior stones. Yes, it’s dangerous, not to mention creepy, and I’d much rather not go in there—but we’re going to have to do it eventually anyway when we start searching for
symbols.”

  Brie nods. “Makes sense.”

  “But even more short term,” I continue, “I have an idea to make our climbing lighter.”

  “Go on.”

  “We’re finally allowed to use Voice commands once again. And we’re surrounded by so many things made of orichalcum. Which means we can make them levitate—starting with our uniforms!”

  I pause for emphasis, and everyone’s looking at me.

  “Do you really think the Games creators would make it so easy for anyone?” Kokayi snorts. “I really doubt it, my dear.”

  “I doubt it also,” Chihar says. “The orichalcum content in the fabric is microscopic level, just enough for nano-data storage. But you are free to try, of course, as a Vocalist.”

  And so I take a deep steadying breath, bring my chin down to focus my vocal output at my torso, and sing a keying sequence directed at my own uniform. The moment I do, I feel my clothing stiffening around me, for lack of a better description—all the folds and wrinkles of the white glossy fabric along my limbs go slack, as if some invisible iron has pulled them out, smoothed them. . . . As it’s happening, everyone stares at my uniform.

  Next, I sing a rising sequence.

  At once, my pants and shirt start pulling upward. The sleeves pull up at my arms and hands, the fabric and collar rises up into my neck and smothers my face, and the bottom edge of my shirt starts moving up too, so that you can see my undershirt in a ridiculous embarrassing way. . . . As for my bottoms, the pants legs slide up my calves and try to move past my knees, and the seat of the pants rides straight up, pulling at my crotch.

  Congratulations, Gwen idiot Lark.

  I’m definitely not levitating or going anywhere. Instead, I’ve just given myself a hovering wedgie.

  Brie snorts hard and then starts laughing. A second later, Zaap makes a stifled sound and also laughs with nasal barks. . . . Kokayi and Chihar take a few moments longer, but then they also give in and lose it. Kokayi goes into high-pitched peals of laughter, and Chihar holds back as much as possible but still produces chuckles.

  Contenders on the nearest floating blocks start glancing our way.

  A few seconds later, some of those jumbo screens on the cliffs must have picked up what’s happening here, because the audience bursts out in a cheerful rolling noise and chants my name: “Gwen Lark! Gwen Lark!”

  I let out a deep breath and shake my head, and chuckle at myself also, because what else can I do—as I’m fighting with my own uniform and trying to keep my shirt from choking me. And so I sing the command to unkey the uniform. Immediately the fabric goes slack and I hurry to straighten my clothing.

  “What is it with you and pants, Lark?” Brie finally quiets down.

  I feel my face heating up as I recall the incident during the battle with Sarpanit Latao. “You saw that?”

  Brie looks at me. “Oh, yeah.”

  “All right, you guys win,” I say. “The uniform does not hover.”

  “Oh, it hovers, all right,” Kokayi giggles in a girlish voice. “Just not enough to do you any good.”

  But I’m not done yet.

  I pull forward my equipment bag that’s slung diagonally across my chest and partly resting on my back. And then I sing again, focusing my keying sequence upon the bag.

  To my satisfaction, the keyed bag immediately lifts away from my side and remains hovering in place, midair, ready for the next command. I put my arms around it to test its give, and then sort of lean forward, resting on my abdomen, and hang off it, dangling my feet. The bag gives slightly, but supports my weight!

  “Okay, now I’m impressed!” Brie says, moving in to touch the bag and presses down on it, hard. The moment she does it, the bag starts sinking, and slowly lowers both of us down. “Only supports one person, looks like,” she mutters.

  “Better than nothing,” Chihar says. “Good to know. Very useful in this game stage.” And he sings in a low tenor to key his own bag so that it hovers at his side.

  “Fine work indeed.” Kokayi nods at me. “If anyone gets tired from climbing, or if the jump distance becomes too wide, use the bag to help you stay up. And the straps act like safety belts.”

  “Just as useful to realize, it supports itself.” I tug at the bag’s strap as if it’s a dog on a leash, and it sails gently after me. “You can use a voice command to make it follow you, or simply pull it after you instead of dragging—this way you’re not carrying its weight.”

  “Yes, this is good. So, now what?” Zaap says. “Do we keep moving and this time go inside the field of stones?”

  Before any one of us can answer, the deep sound of bells echoes over the cliffs, ringing three times, to signal a new hour. . . .

  Which means, a change in the pyramid configuration is coming.

  Everywhere around us, the huge stone blocks slowly begin moving. At the same time, a strange, awful creaking or grinding sound of rock crushing against rock comes from inside the pyramid.

  The stone on which we’re all standing lurches gently and starts moving also. I make a small sound of alarm and grab my hovering equipment bag, and hold on to it for dear life. It keeps me steady enough that the motion of the stone slab underneath my feet does not cause me to lose my balance and fall off. . . .

  The others keep their footing, and we all freeze in place, watching and listening to the process taking place around us.

  “These things move slowly, at least that’s good,” Brie says as we stare at the shifting blocks.

  “Gives us time to get out of the way.” Chihar nods. “So we watch and learn, this first time, to see how the blocks move.”

  “That’s assuming they will always move the same way,” I say.

  “Assume nothing,” Kokayi says.

  All along the slopes of the pyramid, everyone has paused what they’re doing, observing the seemingly random motion.

  As we watch, the huge blocks move closer or further apart, dip down or rise upward like a kinetic sculpture, a giant hanging mobile. Some of the stones come together and scrape against each other, others draw farther apart. They cast weird multilayered shadows in the bright sunlight, as the interior spaces get rearranged and newly exposed to light.

  And then everything grinds to a halt. We find that the block we’re on has risen several feet and now lies nearly adjacent to another, creating one long slab of doubled width.

  “Look, Ma, we got us a double-wide,” Brie quips, stepping on the small crack between the two slabs which is about an inch apart horizontally and misaligned by two inches vertically. “Very convenient.”

  “We camp here? Or we move on?” Zaap says, ignoring Brie.

  Chihar considers. “Don’t forget, if we stay on any outside stone for more than two hours, it becomes a Hot Zone, according to the rules.”

  “We still have time,” I say, repositioning the levitating equipment bag in front of me, as it pulls at the shoulder strap like a tether.

  In that moment, a hard yell sounds from behind and just underneath our position, then cuts short. Apparently someone lost their footing and plummeted down on the sand below.

  I glance at the beach directly down, and barely make out a body in a red uniform splattered on the ground, a sword lying nearby.

  And then I happen to glance at the block levitating right underneath our configuration. A short familiar girl, with spiked four-colored pixie-hair and a blue uniform, stands looking up at me, with her hands raised in an awkward wave, or maybe a gesture of surrender.

  It’s Lolu Eetatu.

  Chapter 57

  The others are first to react, as they see Lolu Eetatu appear directly below our position.

  “What is she doing here?” Brie says, taking a step to the edge of the block and resting hands on hips. Her bearing hardens, and she is menacing, a split second away from going into combat mode, as she watches Lolu like a serpent.

  “Oh, her,” Zaap says in a grim voice. “Let her come up here, and I will kill her.”

  Mean
while Kokayi leans down over our stone and says almost cheerfully to the girl below. “I wouldn’t come up here, if I were you, not a good idea.”

  My breath catches as a flood of awful memories comes back to me . . . Lolu’s desperate betrayal of me in exchange for her brother’s life . . . the terrible prisoner exchange with Deneb Gratu, in which her brother ends up dead anyway . . . my surrender to Deneb’s gang, and all that follows. . . . Ugh, I feel a mixture of guilt, pity, anger, and betrayal at the sight of this girl who even now perversely reminds me of my sister Gracie. I should hate her, but I don’t. On the other hand, I feel a world of hurt and illogical guilt that somehow her brother died because of me.

  I pause, looking down at her, and see her familiar, stubborn, intense expression—managing to come across annoyed even now—as she meets my gaze, and tries not to look away.

  “Get lost!” Brie says in a merciless voice.

  But Lolu ignores her and the others as if they don’t exist, and continues to look only at me. “Gwen Lark!” she says, and then points with her hand down at the ground, at the fallen Red. “He was going to attack you when you weren’t looking. I followed him and took care of him.”

  “It looks more like you were following us,” Chihar says.

  “Yeah,” Brie says. “So what do you want, a brownie and a gold star? Sorry, bitch, you don’t get anything, not after what you did.”

  “What do you want, Lolu?” I say sadly. It feels strange talking to her so normally after what happened the last time we were in the same place together.

  “Can I come up, Gwen?”

  I pause, looking at her, thinking, as my pulse races in erratic fashion. “Why?”

  “I want to talk,” Lolu says with a frown. And then she adds, “Please. . . .”

  I pause again, conflicted.

  “No, she is not coming up here!” Brie snarls. “You can’t trust that little snake!”

  I bite my lip. “I know. And I don’t. But I want to hear what she has to say.”